


Glaube

by lichtkleid



Category: Rammstein
Genre: BDSM, Blasphemy, Christianity, Drug Use, Multi, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2017-09-29
Packaged: 2018-12-14 11:26:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11782170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lichtkleid/pseuds/lichtkleid
Summary: "And, just there as he stands on the doorstep listening to the holy words, he thinks that he would have liked, too, to be able to believe in someone bigger than himself..."on the place of faith.





	1. Faith

**Author's Note:**

> I wanted to try something a little different, as faith and religion are themes I've wanted to explore for a while :) hope you enjoy and that I'm not flooding your AO3 feed

His father’s mother is stern and silent; the boy thinks of her as the rocks on the white cliffs. She doesn’t give him much attention when he visits, but despite that, he knows deep down that he is loved. She doesn’t have to say it: he can feel it in the way she behaves around him.  
He’s never been scared of her, even as a little boy, when his sister cried as soon as she raised an eyebrow. It is a perk of being the favorite child: his grandmother and him could share their loneliness and enjoy each other’s silence. Their affection is wordless and often motionless; sometimes, on a sweet impulse, he leaves some wild flowers at the place where she sits at the table.  
He has never liked that table; the flowers make it a little more human, a little more luminous. In her house on the coast, the furniture is huge and dark, and all those cabinets are filled with porcelain they never use. It’s like the light could not pierce through the windows inside the room. There’s a smell of wood and resin in there, mixed with dust and the unmistakable scent of rooms that aren’t aerated enough.  
They only eat there during big festivities: Christmas and Easter, and also when his sister got baptized. The adults pour glasses of red wine and kids get walnut cake, then they go out to play in the endless wheat fields, only to come back at night to a tipsy, joyful assembly.

They have such a party in the dining room he does not like, when they found out he got into sports school. 

There are congratulations and words of encouragement above him. He recognizes his grandmother’s voice in the lot. There are many people in her house today: it seems that the family wanted to be reunited for good. Relatives came from Sachsen and even Thüringen. He has no recollection of most of them, but they all seem to like him, saying kind words about his swimming and his fishing trophies, praising his many talents.

‘Dietrich is a very good swimmer now’ a voice says above the boy’s head.  
‘We’re so proud he got into that school’ someone else adds, and a hand is tenderly run across his hair.  
The boy looks up and smils at his parents. He doesn’t care much for sports school: he likes to swim, but in the weekend, in the lake behind their house, not in crowded swimming pools. Still, it seems to make his parents proud, that he possesses such a skill, and that it comes so effortlessly to him. He has mastered all kinds of natation now. It’s all so natural to him, like walking, like breathing almost. 

He does not necessarily think he has many talents, if anything he likes being able to fish; later, if his father agreed, he’d learn how to hunt. It’s always nice to have something more to put on the table.

The festivities go on for a while. He does not realize it yet, but everyone really just want a reason to celebrate: for the children of the East such as himself, life couldn’t be more normal, but his parents had known another reality beforehand, a youth they missed.  
His parents talk sometimes of the regime in hushed, deceitful words that do not always mean what they seem to mean. Later, of course, he will understand, but for now he doesn’t know any better. 

It’s a warm August day; the boy goes out into the meadows with his sister. She’s only half his age, but she looks up to him a lot, and he’s always felt a protective streak towards her, as if he were responsible. 

Together, they sit by the lake, and he shows her how to skip stones on its smooth surface. When she’ll be a little older, he’ll teach her how to swim, too.  
They stroll together along the meadows. She’s so tiny, yet already so lively: he can see features in her face that resemble his own, and their parents’ as well. Her smile fills him with joy. He thinks that he’s going to love having children.  
They pluck the first apples off the apple tree. They’re not entirely ripe yet, and have this acidic, sour taste under the thick green skin. He finds the ripest one for her and snatches it from the tree.

The knife rips a little as he peels the apple, flaying his hand. The scratch is tiny; a single drop of blood pearls out of it. He wipes his finger on his shirt and resumes his task, cutting the apple in slices and handing them over to his sister. Then he walks to the lake, washes the knife, and hesitates a while as he sets it back into his pocket.  
There is nobody around them; his sister isn’t paying attention to him anymore, throwing little pieces of apple at the ducks.  
So he picks up the knife again and presses it into the tiny wound on his hand, deepening it a little. The pain takes a minute to arrive, but when it does, he feels he wants to hurl the knife away. Instead, he just closes it, pockets it and clenches his jaw.  
He watches the little wound on his hand and presses the flesh around it to make more blood ooze out of it. It drops in little purple pearls, and he thinks it’s beautiful. It tastes of metal and salt and he doesn’t like the taste as much as he enjoys the aspect of it. He looks at it drip alongside his hand, towards his wrist, and thinks that the human body is a miracle.

Much later in his life, he will discover that pain is the sweetest ecstasy that’s permitted to humanity. 

They come back home as the night closes in; their mother chastises them gently for coming home so late. She’s a little drunk, too light-headed to be really angry. They have grass in their hair and the dazed look of the kids that stayed too long under the sun on their faces. Sleep claims them in a matter of seconds.  
It doesn’t last though. He never slept well and he never will. Besides, in the night, his grandmother’s house feels surreal. Every corner seems to hide strange spirits, and the shadows look alive. Maybe they are, he thinks, what does he know in the end?  
After all, all legends must have a true foundation. People don’t just invent them like that.  
The boy shivers in his bed. He’s afraid of the dark all of a sudden, as if he were still a child. 

His fear gets the best of him. He jumps out of bed, runs along the corridor, and dashes to his grandmother’s room. He’s only a kid after all.  
But the light’s still on in her room. She prays by the bed, hands folded and eyes closed, an expression of quiet ecstasy written on her face.

His grandmother is a ferocious Catholic in the land of Protestants, and where most people have turned away from religion. The State promotes atheism and to the boy, it always appeared the easier path. But she was from East Frisia, in what was now the FRG, and where the rest of her family still was. She never really forgave the world for having been trapped in Mecklenburg that Sunday night when the Wall was erected, and clung to her old traditions, the only way she had to keep her past alive.  
He obviously doesn’t know any of that. He wouldn’t have understood anyway; kids his age only have basic notions of what the confines of their country are, and why it is this way.  
It stays all a blur for many years and even as they reach their teenage years, most of the truth seems distant and nebulous. 

He watches her pray in silence, and sees an emotion which barely ever graces her face, a softness in her eyes, her jaws relaxing, and the pious, ecstatic stance of the believers.  
And, just there as he stands on the doorstep listening to holy words, he thinks that he would have liked, too, to be able to believe in someone bigger than himself, like his grandmother does.

Dietrich Lindemann closes the door and hurries back to his own room. Soon he’ll be a man, and what a man he will be; but for now he’s still scared of the dark and of the woods, and he wishes that he could put in faith in someone.  
Someone who could understand his need for reverence.  
Someone he could give himself up to.


	2. Union

Inside the ballroom, the noise is deafening: clattering of cutlery, loud talking, violins playing in the background. A tipsy voice is chanting a song in Russian.  
Till glances over at his sister, sitting in her white gown with her husband by her side. The newly weds look radiant, isolated in a world that is only their own, and they are beyond happiness.

He drinks a little too much. All that noise is overstimulating and despite all the familiar voices, he feels out of place; but there is something around this place that makes one want to lose himself. Till knows he does. There’s too much around him. His sister and her new husband at the beginning of their lives, full of hope and joy, the crowd of family and friends cheering for them. And above all that need to celebrate something, anything, a wedding, a death, a baptism.

Christine Lindemann and her husband look gorgeous in the candlelight, the perfect married pair awaiting bliss.

She’s his sister so it forces comparison. Till has been through this already and even though he’s only five years older than Christine, he feels jaded and old beyond his years - he always has. He knows for sure that he will never marry again and yet it doesn’t stop him from wishing his own marriage had been a little better. When he looks back, he has never felt as carefree and hopeful as Christine always was, nor as joyful as she is today.

Next to his parents, he sees his grandmother sitting at the side of the man she married in her youth. Decades later, they still stand near each other with the same starkness as before, but Till knows it’s just out of habit. After years of longing for each other on each side of the wall, they have been reunited in the end, only to find that severed family ties cannot be mended. Some cracks never really disappear.  
But for the sake of Christine’s happiness and for their own pride, they sit together and they put on a show.  
Till thinks that it’s tragic and beautiful.

He feels as if he’s been sitting at that table for hours. They’ve had Hochzeitsuppe already, then cold beef with horseradish sauce and honey-lathered Baumkuchen. But the guests here eat just like they drink: methodically and surely as if performing a task. One dish follows another, way after hunger has been satiated. The wine glasses keep being refilled: every time Till finishes his, an anonymous hand fills it again. He slowly gets drunk on white Alsatian wine.  
Later, finally, they serve Latvian bread pudding with vanilla cream and shots of schnapps and finally it’s over.

Two violinists start playing a waltz: Christine and her husband open the ball, twirling together with a surprising ease, under the veil that’s being held up for them.

His head is so light. He watches his sister and her husband perform the veil dance and the guests starting to join them to dance.  
He’s horrible at dancing and Christine teases him about it when they finally get their dance together. He rolls his eyes but has to admit she isn’t wrong, and they laugh. They both miss their closeness. She was one of the first to move to the West when the wall fell and because he remained in his flat of the Frankfurter Allee in Lichtenberg, they stopped seeing each other as often. Then came the man who became her fiancé and who she had just married tonight; and with that Till and her only talked on the phone, and it was oh so rare.

Much later, when the music changes to a jive, he forfeits and they sit at the empty tables. Everyone dances now, the music is fast-paced and joyful and Till pours them some Rotkäppchen.

This place is out of time, out of life and it makes him feel as if watching his own past through the lace of a moucharaby. The mirror hanging above the tables still bears the impact of an ancient bullet, and the cracked ceiling was never repaired. The light of multiple chandeliers and candles cast a shifting, shadowy light onto music-crazed faces. If not for the modern, Western outfits, he’d think he’s back centuries ago, into Germany’s golden age.

And now Ossis and Wessis dine together as one by candlelight, into the ballroom’s shattered glory, in the very heart of their bleeding Berlin, watching elders and young couples dancing the dances of old, and Till is drunk and his heart is full of sorrows and of joys that are not his.

‘Come live in the West’ Christine says.

Her words break his reverie. She smiles at him and her eyes are tender. She didn’t drink.

‘Why would I? We still live in the same city.’

‘But we barely meet anymore. If you lived in the West, we could see more of each other.’

‘And that something you want?’ he asks, smiling.

She rolls her eyes.

‘It’s not that I want to see your stupid face every day. But family should be close.’  
‘Especially now’ she adds, and he sees her looking a little lost all of a sudden.

‘Why? What happens now?’

Instead of a reply, she just stares at him, eyes so stern they seem to be drilling into his brain, and he thinks of their grandmother who never smiles.

‘Christine, what’s happening?’ he asks softly.

Then he details her: the way she’s dressed, a loose, silken wedding gown, the way she glows and that frightened look in her eyes, the glass full of champagne in her hand, and then it all makes sense.

‘Kleine, are you with child?’

He doesn’t need to await her answer to know he’s right: and in her eyes, he seems himself in her place, a clueless father who had to grow up too fast. But all that he’d endured, could he let his sister go through that as well? She was still so young, and still so carefree, and he thinks of her again at the altar, eyes lost in happiness, drawing all the eyes to her.  
She’s so young for all those primal, brutal emotions, for all the pain, and for all the happiness that come with the bearing of a child.  
But she’s so hopeful; he lets her joy gain him and hugs her.

‘All my congratulations, Christine. You will be a wonderful mother.’

She smiles, and he sees in her smile that she doesn’t doubt his words. And with that, she stands up to dance again. He waves at her. He’s going to leave now. He’s light-headed and sad for a reason he cannot explain.  
He sneaks into the corridor, rests his head against the wall and watches as she dances, her white, vaporous dress twirling around her thin figure into Clärchen’s destroyed ballroom. A vigorous, young beauty amongst tainted remnants of a past age, and it feels historical.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clärchens Ballhaus is one of my favorite places in Berlin, the atmosphere is really striking. I really recommend it if you ever come here :)  
> Hochzeitsuppe is chicken soup with egg that is usually served during weddings or the morning after.  
> Rotkäppchen is a kind of champagne that was produced in the GDR, and it was so successful that it is still made now, because the demand for it was so high even after the wall fell.
> 
> This chapter is really not my favorite but i don't think over-editing is the solution so i'm posting it anyway, and I hope you'll still like it


	3. Death

Till finds himself a taste for the blatant after a life of simplicity. He is reaching the apogee of his life, his name is on every lip, and he is, finally, free to move at his will. Fame is both imprisoning and liberating.  
But he’ll be damned if he doesn’t make the most out of it. For the first time in his life, it seems like debauchery has no consequences and it’s an opportunity every human has dreamt of: paradise on earth, the luxury of sin.  
And sin, the Christian value he never truly believed in, suddenly becomes a way of life. He feels strong enough to defy values that have been ingrained in him since childhood. He knows now that pleasure shouldn’t be forbidden, even though he doesn’t deny that it did taste better when he felt he had no right to it.

He burns away what’s left of his youth and it feels amazing. He wastes himself away, in darkened alleys, in sex clubs in the middle of Berlin, dancing his worries away, drinking his death away. He feels jaded even though he’s merely thirty two. The world is losing its savor in a matter of months – he burns it all too fast - he never learnt balance after all.  
But he’s still young, still wanted, and still talented. Words flow out of his quill with a swiftness, a fluidity they never had before. He has never written that much and that well. Maybe one day, he should release of book of poetry instead of twisting and torturing his words to make them into songs.  
Inspiration does not leave him now. It comes with his tiredness of the world, with his knowledge of hearts.  
It might be bitter, but it is there, and he cannot say his poetry was ever hopeful.  
The only beautiful thing he writes, in his opinion, are poems for his child; but she is grown now, she goes to secondary school and she doesn’t need to have songs sung to her at night anymore. She can deal with her nightmares on her own now and he wonders why he cannot do the same. He wishes, selfishly, that she would still need him as much as before.

Going onstage is getting easier with time. He knows now how to rid himself of intrusive thoughts before entering the stage; the ritual of drinking tequila shots before going onstage helps too, more than he admits. It’s not the alcohol though, but the mere knowledge that he’s going to the front with his family, and not by himself. And in the ultimate moment of camaraderie, he remembers of all their hardships, and knows that he’d better try and rule a crowd for two hours than go back to the poverty-stricken despair that was their youth.

He does miss playing punk music though. Back then, it was easy, because playing was about them: a torn youth. They just had to go onstage and scream out their feelings and their fears. They could embody their youth onto the chords. It was easy, messy, and therapeutic, although it was never really good. It never mattered whether it was good or not. It was cathartic.  
Now they were more about technique, and about a more sophisticated way to attain satisfaction: the way that comes through hard work and exhaustion, instead of the one coming from relief. Music was a job now.

He’s tired of this life.

Every concert ends with applause that doesn’t end. Even as they return backstage to get showered, even as the afterparty starts, the clapping continues. Till feels bad at that, at times he wishes to go back on stage. He still dislikes it, but it’s his job anyway, and if it can make people happy, then he doesn’t mind.  
But a job’s a job and he does enjoy the afterparties.

Everything’s a little better in the saturated light of the nights, red or blue – inhuman and out of time. Till thinks of the time he danced with his sister at her wedding and nostalgia kicks him in the chest with the suddenness of lightening.  
And in the dead of the night, as the cheers from the crowd won’t quiet down and as adrenalin still makes his heart throb, he realizes all the hardships he’s endured for this success. And he sits down, contented, dizzy, smiling, relishing in the applause. Then he turns on the lights around the mirror and starts to wipe off his make-up.  
His face appears in the unforgiving brightness, naked and vulnerable with all the imperfections that make their way onto his skin: ancient, fading acne scars, and new, tiny wrinkles around his eyes and on his forehead. They come from smiles he does not remember having, a fading ghost of dead laughter. Can he still smile now, so full of drugs, so high on his success, so far away from himself?  
He closes his eyes to escape his own image and wishes he were still onstage, disguised and safe behind the fire.

Later, he’ll disappear from the party and no one will ever see him live. He’s drunk and high. He feels good, and the future’s welcoming.  
Thank God for heroin.  
He hails a cab to Berlin’s city center, and waits at the entrance of the most famous sex club of the city. He’s Till Lindemann, he knows how to command respect, and he passes the line, without a look for those still waiting.  
His mind is aflame.

His lips are being kissed. He tastes the usual taste of lipstick –colored, expensive and somewhat heavy on the lips. He licks the cosmetic.  
Women talk above him and he feels shrunken down to the size of a child again. Patronized, unwanted, disliked, while the adults talk and while he envies them.  
But this time he has nothing to envy.  
A soft, manicured hand cups his face. A blindfold is secured around his head and he lets himself fall into the softness of darkness. Somebody parts his thighs and leathers cuffs close around his limbs.  
He loses his sense of self and he wishes he’d never have to endure self-awareness again.

He’s a pantomime Christ nailed onto a St-Andrew’s cross and he expiates in the sweetest crucifixion. He might think that blasphemy is vulgar and the easiest form of controversy, that night it doesn't displease him in the least. His torturers are splendorous. He can afford the most beautiful of everything, the softest flesh, the harshest whip, the gentlest lips, and he buys them all.  
There is comfort in the sordid and in the anonymity. He knows nobody will say his name once they exit the room, and he can enjoy his pain in peace, until his mind is filled with red and his body does not respond anymore. He learns that the ugly grandeur of the lowlife is the most breathtaking of them all, and he, the golden-wrought Hephaestus, the silk-draped Bukowski, touches the sky in Berlin's heart.

But torture always ends, just like ecstasy does. Till’s not sure which one he’s just experienced when he’s released from his cuffs, but his body takes time to respond again, and his brain is entirely disconnected.  
His tormentors rub the blood back into his veins, untie his blindfold and sit with him. He’s floating away. A man and a woman – both gorgeous, both insanely gorgeous – are gently urging him back to life. He’s high on their perfume and their touch is seared into his heart. The man kisses his temple, whispers gentle words, while the woman massages his wrists and puts something stingy, painful, onto his back. It’s antiseptic and he hates it. He could take as much pain as needed when he was still on the cross but now that the feeling of submission, of need, has worn off, pain feels unnecessary. 

He’s offered more heroin and he takes it gratefully, rejoicing beforehand of the high he’s expecting.

His sins feel light in the dark, the drug burns inside of him, and the fire soothes him. The high keeps the pain at bay, now that the endorphins are ebbing. He’s scared and hurt now, and hopes the dope makes its way into his system faster. He takes a little bit more.  
Something burns his cheeks; he realizes he’s crying and feels humiliated. A minute ago, when the whip was still on him, he’d have greeted the tears gratefully, but not now, not when the first high’s coming to an end and not now that the night is no more.  
Someone bends over him, kisses the tears away, and bids him goodnight. Very soft lips are touching his. In the background, very, very far from himself, he overhears the word “overdose” but doesn’t think for a second that it’s applying to him. The lips have stopped kissing him though and he doesn’t like the sudden cold. He tries to say something but his words stay caught in his sore throat, and he realizes his vision is blurry. Why is he seeing white? He’s getting lost, where is he again?  
What’s that room, who are these people, and more importantly why did he stop getting kissed?  
And why is it so hard to stay standing?  
His mind is made of cotton, his eyes are filled with white, and his lips do not respond anymore. He feels hands around him, and he hears words, different languages he cannot pinpoint – but it’s all German – and why are they keeping him up? He just wants to lie down and oh… what has he done.  
He’ll never know if it was the woman or the man who kissed him last. But he’s alone now, tragically alone, and he begs and begs for them to come back, even though deep down he knows no one can fill that hunger within his soul but himself, and besides he has only payed for one hour.  
He falls into a couch and a brief moment of clarity makes him realize he’s about to die, but death seems like a very distant concept now. He feels like he’s floating far above the ground, while being in an agonizing pain at the same time. He’s lived his years, he thinks, and now he will die. It’s not so bad. Nothing is ever bad with heroin.

His chest is so heavy. He tries to kick the person who’s sitting across him but his hand only meets air. From afar it seems he’s fighting a battle with a ghost only himself can see.

He’s suffocating.

He’s dying.

May God have mercy on me, he thinks. He does not fear for himself, but he thinks of his daughter, of his family. What will happen to them? 

He tries to fight death one last time but he knows already that he’s too far gone. In his head he finds a prayer and stammers it in his mind. Who can claim to be an atheist when death is at the door? 

Till Lindemann cannot, and he prays as he closes his eyes, dying in rhythm, magnificent in his own peculiar way. Death looks splendorous on him, as life has.

Life’s only a game and it’s a relief at end to exit the game, no matter whether who’ve lost or won.


	4. Birth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! I hope you liked the story :)

Autumn reaches the North faster.  
When he finally comes back home after two weeks of rehab in sunny Munich, he finds the village cold and the trees bare. There isn’t a sound to be heard. He feels like he’s driving through a cloud, and realizes that maybe he has had enough of his beloved silence. After all, everyone needs a break of what they love at times.  
He turns on the radio and listens to bad pop music on the ride home. The road thins as he reaches Wismar, and gets smaller and smaller as he keeps going towards his village. The night falls quickly. He suddenly remembers that he told Richard that he would be back today, and fervently hopes that he hasn’t decided to throw him a party. He doesn’t think he can handle a party now, and the sympathy, the curiosity, the well-meaning compassion. He put on enough shows on stage; he would not allow that into his home, as well. From now on, he thinks, no more interviews, no more public life. That had been enough.

Finally, he understands the loneliness of the famous. Once he had banished everyone from his life, including those whom he loved, to protect them, who was left to stand with him by his lake? He’s sure that if he went to the street and just walked along for a mile he’d be greeted by dozens. But to what end? He’d never been more anonymous than now. And no one knows how it feels, to be him. He will never be able to explain. And therefore he shall always feel alone.

He walks into his empty house, carrying his luggage after him. It's a little cold inside but nothing unpleasant. The air smells of dust, so he opens all the windows and watches the ballet of the wind from the inside. Yeah, it will do him good to be in the land, he thinks. He smiles to himself as he remembers the first time he was ever recognized.

It was after the fall of the wall: his first trip outside of Germany had been in Florence. It was the first time he was back to Tuscany after his escapade, ten years before. In Florence, for the first time of his life, he had dared to stand up for himself, and because of that it had felt right to come back. Besides, there were many things to see in that city he had never even dreamed of, and something wicked in the air that heated his soul. And between the warm marble, the lazy flow of the Arno and the smell of roasted coffee, he found the peace of mind that only comes when one escapes responsibility and drowns guilt with pleasure. Here he just wanted to bask into the sun, and to forget about Germany by losing himself in art - art so old he could barely conceive it. At night, he went into the little bars, got drunk of Italian wine, hit on beautiful American tourists and got lucky sometimes. They liked the exoticism of his bad English, and the soft roughness he showed. He wished German women were a little more like that.

Sometimes though, he came home alone, and once as he was staggering along the Ponte Vecchio, he saw a man watching him intently from one of the closed jewelry shops. A forgotten fear ran through his veins; he remembered the time he was caught, in this very city, and when he had seen all the hope of his life hanging by a thread.  
Who was that man and what did he want with him? Was he not a free citizen now? Could he not travel how he pleased now? Had the world changed that little?

Anger coursed through him. It was time he'd make his own law. He felt aggressive all of a sudden.

Who the fuck did that guy think he was, looking at him like that? He was a bit drunk, granted, but who hadn’t been? And he was free to do whatever he pleased for god’s sake. Has this dude never been drunk in his life?  
He crossed the street on wobbly legs towards the guy, but instead of an insult, he was greeted with a large smile.  
‘You’re that guy from First Arsch, aren’t you? You guys are amazing.’  
Destabilized, Till hesitated for a second before breaking a smile.  
‘Yeah… yeah, I am.’ he said.  
He didn’t stop smiling then. Everything in this city was so nice, he thought. And everybody was so friendly.  
‘Could you please sign something for me? My wife and I are big fans, we came to Germany many times just for your concerts.’  
He repressed a chuckle at that - a Polish couple travelling to the East because of them - how surprising; and signed the paper thrusted in his hand with a enthusiasm he'd quickly lose.

He kept smiling as he returned to his hotel. He hated being on stage but he had to admit, recognition wasn’t bad at all. Everybody, him included, could enjoy the stroke to the ego.

He falls asleep like that, sitting on his couch with a smile on his face, still wrapped into his coat like a stranger in his own home. And when he wakes up, two hours later, it’s night and the village is cold and lifeless. He needs a minute to remember where he is and what he is doing there, and then he hates Richard with a passion for not throwing him a party. He could do with the noise now, with women who would want him, with a glass of alcohol in one hand, and a cigarette in the other. What’s the point of life if he were to renounce its pleasure?  
He stands up, rummages into the cabinets, pulls out a bottle of whiskey from former days when drinking was light and fun and didn’t mean addiction. It’s amber and enticing. He uncaps it. It smells divine. It smells of oblivion.  
He resists the urge of taking a sip, and drains it into the sink. His daughter doesn’t need an alcoholic father.  
It’s the hardest thing he’s done in his life. The lack of purpose he feels in his chest, mixed with tiredness, makes him need a drink more than anything else. He knows he’ll start to crave heroin later in the day; yet for now he feels no particular desire for it. It's alcohol he'd like.

Oh, to feel nothing…

He climbs the creaking stairs, kicks off his shoes and drops his coat at the door before curling up in cold sheets. Why did he want to be lonely in the first place? This is awful. He feels sick to his stomach.  
And what is he doing… what life is he leading? Singing, writing? What happened to his dream of being a fisherman? Then he’d have nothing to do but busy his hands with nets and fill his mind with salt and foam. The world would be open to him.

He hopes he won’t be in pain tonight. If only he could stand up and have a drink… just one. Then he’d sleep well.

But there’s nothing left in this fucking empty house. He’d wasted his youth there, why did he have to spend his days now anyway?

Tomorrow he’ll go to Berlin and get his daughter. Then they’ll take a trip together to Paris, since she wanted that. He’d show her around.

He feels better in Berlin. There, it's always the perfect mix of beauty and ugliness and he strongly believes that both are needed to make a life. Besides here, he has the luxury of being alone, but never lonely. Just driving through Potsdamer Platz, despite the wicked traffic, reminds him of the sheer luck he had in his youth, to see the wall fall. Now he has it all. He shouldn't be so ungrateful for this.  
His small flat, on the Frankfurter Allee, drills the thought even further into his brain. There, nothing had changed, except for the ugly wallpaper on the walls. If he sits down, all he can see outside are the grey blocks so similar to the one he calls home, and a patch of blue sky. It's depressing to no end but it's also comforting.  
Not so long ago, his life was only starting.

When the evening comes, he turns on the TV and he sees the Sändmannchen on the screen, the old program of his childhood, why is that still airing? Hasn’t the West any better shows for children than this?  
He sings the theme song to himself, slowly, smiling, falling into nostalgia.

But the cartoon does its job. Slowly dragging him into nostalgia. It's striking. Suddenly he’s twenty again, purposeless, lost, angry and afraid. He stands up, rummages into the cupboards and remembers that he never disposed of the stash he had there. Triumphantly, he pulls out a bottle of vodka and settles back in the couch.

He drinks himself sick while watching Sandmännchen, heart swollen with longing. He didn't bother with a glass and takes long swings of the drink. It feels good to have his throat burnt once more, and he knows that soon, the pleasant dizziness will make its way into his overworked brain. He wishes Flake were here – he knows he’d understand. But even in Flake, he cannot confide; there are things he cannot tell his closest friends, and what would he say if he were to come over to watch Sandmännchen and he found Till drunk?

When he finally feels the tears in his own eyes, he turns off the TV and stands up. The empty bottle falls to the ground. He picks it up and smashes it angrily, with an anger he does not recognize. Then he picks up one of the glass shards and scrutinizes it in the dying light. The piece of glass flays his thumb and he smiles at the ancient memory. It drops to the floor and he walks to the balcony. His fingers shake as he reaches for a cigarette. He takes a unnerving long time to light it. His body is uncharacteristically unresponsive, but the numbness feels good.  
He stands at the balcony and looks at the alley at his feet. In his hand, the cigarette is slowly combusting, but when the burning ash touches his fingers, he barely flinches. His mind is too far away. He looks down and watches the modern cars stuck in traffic and life is in black and white again.  
He needs something new.  
Absent-mindedly, he puts his injured fingers to his mouth. Not so long ago, there were angels in Berlin's sky. They, too, only saw life in black and white.  
He takes his phone out of his pocket and dials his sister’s number.

"Christine, I'm going to the West. Can I stay with you for a while?"


End file.
